The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Each year, lightning-induced transient voltage and current cause millions of dollars in damage to electronic equipment. While surge protectors offer significant protection against this type of damage, they are not effective in all cases such as a direct lightning strike to the power line. The most effective protection is to physically unplug the equipment from the power socket as well as disconnect phone, coaxial cable or other connections.
However, thunderstorms and related weather events often occur when the homeowner is away or asleep making physical unplugging of equipment impossible. A weather alert system generally refers to a meteorological agency that issues weather alerts to warn citizens of approaching dangerous weather. For example, the National Weather Service (NWS) uses an automated radio system called Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) to broadcast alerts for severe weather conditions such as thunderstorms or tornados that are affecting a local area. Each local area SAME system has a particular broadcast frequency. Weather radios tuned to a local SAME frequency may be equipped to receive and process signals from such systems.